May
31
2012
0

The next campaigns – status update

Here’s the status of where we stand with each of the next campaigns in the queue:

  • SNAPAP members in Algeria – on hunger strike. Waiting to hear from the ITUC, to get a formal request to move forward on this.
  • Korea: dramatic campaign at Ssangyoung motor – including some suicides. Waiting to get final text etc from the KMWF.
  • Kenya: lockout of flower workers. Asked them for some media coverage; we’re still trying to find a least one link on the web to the story they wish to campaign on.
  • Iraq: Oil workers. Campaign was proposed on 9 May; we received confirmation from ICEM yesterday (30 May) to go ahead.  This will go ahead tomorrow.
Written by admin in: Campaigns |
May
31
2012
3

Everything is broken (not really)

Obviously, some things were going to break.  That’s what happens when you move a complicated system from one server to another.  So today and for the next few days, I’ll be fixing what we notice is broken.  Here’s the list:
  1. Counter no longer showing on campaigns. This now works again, but differently.  It currently shows the total number for the campaign in that language – not all languages.  It is updated whenever someone looks at the list of campaign supporters for that language.  I will be improving this in the next few days to once again show totals for all languages, and will find a better ‘trigger’ to ensure regular updates of the numbers.
  2. List of current campaigns not showing on the LabourStart front page. Fixed for English, but not happy with the solution. Will seek a better one.
  3. When looking at list of campaign supporters, sort by source not working. This has now been fixed.
  4. Latest news about this campaign is not showing on the campaign page. Will fix this in the next few days.  This is complicated as the news is on one server and there is no very simple way to retrieve it from another (we may have to create a JavaScript or RSS feed of news per campaign). This is only a problem in one direction – the ‘act now’ links do appear next to related news stories. But those news stories are not appearing on the campaign page.
Written by admin in: Campaigns |
May
30
2012
0

Brace yourselves – new campaigns on the way, in droves

This has now been updated, here.


I’ve responded to emails requesting urgent action campaigns this morning from, or on behalf, of:

  • Now live! Turkish aviation workers – facing a gov’t ban on the right to strike and the sacking of hundreds of workers
  • SNAPAP members in Algeria – on hunger strike
  • Korea: dramatic campaign at Ssangyoung motor – including some suicides
  • Kenya: lockout of flower workers
  • Iraq: Oil workers
  • Indonesia: This is not a request for a campaign, but to promote one already on change.org.
  • Thailand: Wal-mart – stop human rights abuses in your factories.  Also already live on sumofus.org – we’ll just give it a boost, as the IUF did 5 days ago.

I plan to begin work today on a draft agreement between us and any campaign partners laying out what we pledge to do and what they pledge to do.  We need this as more and more campaign requests come through.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
May
29
2012
0

LabourStart campaigns – now hosted in Iceland

Iceland.

This morning I did the first stages of the switchover which should be transparent to our users. Every campaign now automatically re-directs to our new server. The pages showing campaign statistics also redirect. I’ve checked and see records being added to our database of supporters.  In previous tests, we’ve seen that the messages do reach their targets.  The next stage is to make this more “native” – with no redirects.  A big thanks to Chris Croome at WebArchitects, Derek Blackadder and Andy Funnell for helping to make this happen.  The real test will be what happens when we announce a new campaign – will it crash the server?  Fingers crossed …

(Don’t know what I’m talking about? Read more here.)

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
May
28
2012
0

Weekly roundup, 21-28 May

Could you all have a look at the blog postings for the last week (see below)?  I’ve asked for help and advice on a few things (Zendesk, Wikipedia, translations), but got no response. Thanks.

Meanwhile, some highlights of the last week …

LabourStart TV: I posted our first original content for a very long time, an interview with Teamster official Tim Beaty.  There have been over 300 views and 4 comments posted.

Campaigns:

  • I added a line of text updating the Bahrain campaign to a number of languages, at the request of the Education International.
  • I asked PSI and UNISON about continuing with the Colombia campaign after two months – UNISON is keen to do so, but we’re waiting for an answer from PSI.  The campaign has gotten a healthy 7,845 messages sent.
  • We launched a campaign in support of workers’ rights activists in Mexico; in the first week online it got 5,550 supporters.
  • The Matteo Parlati campaign in Italy was closed; the first day in court was on Friday.  Matteo now no longer needs to report every day to a police station, and his actual trial has been pushed back to November.  A total of 8,357 messages were sent.
  • A lot more work done on the move of our campaigns to the new server in Iceland; see below for full details.  The move will take place tomorrow (Tuesday).
  • Spent a lot of time trying to stop people from being able to send off multiple messages for the same campaign using the same email address, with only limited success.  We will aim to have this working properly on the new server.

Wikipedia: I attempted the monthly update of our page there, but stopped.  See blog post below.

Written by admin in: Campaigns,LabourStart.tv,Wikipedia |
May
25
2012
0

The countdown begins: 4 days to the switchover for our campaigns

Next Tuesday at 09:00 London time we’ll be moving LabourStart’s campaigns over to a new server based in Iceland.  In previous posts here I’ve explained why we’re doing that, but to sum up:

  • Keeping the campaigns and news on the same server means that if the campaigns cause a problem (e.g., a target threatens libel or accuses us of spamming them) our web hosting company freaks out and threatens to shut us down (and has shut us down).  Separation means this will not happen again.
  • When a new campaign gets announced to our 70,000+ strong English mailing list, the immediate flood of supporters can crash our server.  When both campaigns and news were on one server, this meant that LabourStart’s news pages became inaccessible, correspondents were unable to login, and so on.  This should not be the case after the switchover.

I expect there to be bugs and problems, but the actual down-time should be very short if everything is prepared correctly.  Nevertheless, expect that from 09:00 until 10:00 on Tuesday morning in London, our campaigns may be offline.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
May
22
2012
0

Campaign closed: Anti-fascist Matteo Parlati, Italy

Matteo Parlati.

Matteo Parlati.

This campaign closed today after three months – it got 8,357 supporters making it one of our larger efforts.

Matteo’s trial finally begins at the end of this week (Friday, 25 May).

The union will let us know if they need any further help.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, it seemed as though the state prosecutors had opened an investigation into our efforts; but this does not now seem to be the case — or at least we’ve heard nothing since.

Written by admin in: Campaigns |
May
22
2012
1

Wikipedia – help needed

Can any correspondents help out here?  I have been updating our page on the Wikipedia every month – but now, someone has posted a number of issues, partly relating to the fact that I’m the one doing the updating.  If any of you have a moment and are willing to try your hand at the Wikipedia, please go here and see what you can do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabourStart Thanks.

Written by admin in: Wikipedia |
May
21
2012
0
May
21
2012
0

Translations of recent campaigns

LabourStart already has the capacity to translate campaigns in nearly 20 languages – but we often get only half of that done.  And there are many, many more languages we could be doing.  I routinely look over our campaigns after a few weeks to see what has been translated so far and what not, and try to follow up with volunteer translators.  I could use some help with this.  Have a look at this new page on our blog.

Written by admin in: Campaigns,Internationalization |

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